Tuning Installing a brass cup and screw kit

I recently installed a cup screw kit from AoA in my HW90. They don't provide much direction. Here's how I did it. 

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The cups are made deep enough to house both the screw head and the lock washer. But I wanted to minimize the amount of wood I removed from the stock. It's already fairly thin. So I dispensed with the lock washers. The first job was to trim the brass cups down until the top was flush with the bolt head. I bought a 5mm nut at Home Depot and used that to secure the bolt in the cup. I chucked it in my drill motor and used a file and paper to trim and polish. 



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The cups are already the correct diameter for the existing forearm holes, But they stick out, even when trimmed. So the next job was to deepen the holes. The cups measured 0.408" or about 13/32" in diameter. You could use a 13/32" drill bit but there are problems. First, it's not a common size. Second, the drill tip is not flat so you won't get a flat bottom hole. Third, a drill will dig in and possibly drill too deep. What you really need is a 13/32" flat bottomed countersink. You can make your own with a 1/4-20 bolt, a drill motor, a file and a hack saw.

Chuck the 1/4-20 bolt in the drill and either file or grind to reduce head diameter to 13/32". 

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Now cut an X on the top with a hack saw. 

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Next step is to create four cutting edges by filing some relief on the back sides. 

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I used my old smooth-sided file. It's an extremely useful tool, made by grinding the teeth off one side. I think a regular file will work too, but you need to be more careful. The cutting edges don't need to be gorgeous, they're just scraping a small amount of wood. 

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Final product.

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This cutter has several benefits. It's super accurate. It's controllable, taking a little bit at a time. It doesn't touch the side of the stock at the top of the hole so it won't scar the visible finish. It's dirt cheap. 

Cut the hole just deep enough so no part of the cup sticks above the stock. The cutter will rapidly fill with wood, so you'll need to cut a little, then pull it out and clear the chips. 

Here's the installed cup.

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@Airman

Thanks for the kind words! I had the brass cup kit for a long time before working up the courage to proceed. The problem was always how to accurately remove a small amount of material from the bottom of the hole. One day the solution dawned on me. I could have use this idea for some other projects. I hope it's useful for others. 

Here's another forearm screw tip. I originally bought two cup kits, one for the 90 and another for my HW95. Being lazy, I decided to try another solution for the HW95, I bought a couple of stainless steel 5mm phillips screws at Home Depot. The heads are larger than stock Weihrauch, almost perfect for the wood holes. But the bright stainless just didn't fit the subdued blue steel of the HW95. I did a little online research and discovered that stainless is easily blued by heating until it's cherry hot. The phillips screws had small existing burrs so I chucked them in my drill motor, filed the burrs off and sanded them with 400 grit paper to give them a matte finish. I then heated them cherry red with an old propane torch. The color has a slight rainbow overtone and is slightly lighter than the deep black Weihrauch finish. I tried heating several times and it didn't get any darker. But it's not bad. Supposedly it's a durable finish.

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I have some more HW90 stuff coming. I'm looking into the barrel droop issue. 
 
Yes, that's a new HW90. I bought it as a blem from AoA. Because it was a little cheaper, I felt ok with experimenting on it.

Here's an amazing but true fact. The HW90 stock is actually shorter than the HW95 luxus stock. The HW90 is a gas-ram and the trigger latches onto the side (bottom) of the piston, not the end. So they put the trigger block below the receiver, under the piston. Rather than inside the receiver and behind the piston. Moving the trigger block down gives the piston more travel in a shorter receiver. The tradeoff is that the HW90 is a taller gun, the trigger is lower. It makes the grip feel fatter. The HW90 stock is just slightly fatter than the HW95. 

The big difference between the guns is the weight. 
 
@ Airshot

Yes, good catch. Flat bottomed holes are counterbored. Over the years I fell into the lazy habit of calling everything a countersink.

I first considered a brad point bit. Unfortunately they are not flat on the bottom. They also have only two flutes and lots of positive rake on the cutting edges, which could cause the bit to dig in too fast.

Then I looked into Forstner bits. But they have spurs around the perimeter, which leave a deep groove around the bottom of the hole, weakening the wood. 

To be honest, I never looked at a real counterbore cutter. That would definitely work but you would have to pick carefully. Many have side cutting flutes, which might ding the top of the hole. Many have a pilot tip, and might not fit tho hole in the stock.

There ore some other ways to do this. You could make the blank cutter, but glue some sandpaper to the end instead of hack-sawing an X into it. That would give you a smoother finish, rather than the scraped finish. You could also cut the X slots at an angle, and give the cutters some positive rake. Lots of fun!


 
The wood cutting c' bores that I have do not have side cutting flutes and the pilot can be changed to fit different sizes. You are correct that most metal cutting c'bores do have side cutting flutes that could grab when using in wood. Even if the pilot was a little larger, it wouldnt hurt a thing as the cups would create the correct hole size. I am still impressed with your home craftsmanship in making your own cutter !!